SBI has almost three lac endpoints in its branch offices network protected against cyberattacks.

India’s largest bank State Bank of India runs endpoint security solutions from Trend Micro across its 26000 branches in and outside India.

“We have done multiple levels of deployment at SBI. Today Trend Micro Endpoint is deployed across more than 26000 branches of SBI across India and globe across more than 2,85,000 endpoints. This includes almost all endpoint security solutions for them, informed Nilesh Jain, Country Manager - (India and SAARC), Trend Micro in exclusive interaction with CSO India.

Today SBI exclusively runs on Trend Micro for all end point security solutions as per Jain.

The complexity of deployment is of the highest order at SBI says Mrutyunjay Mahapatra, DMD and CIO, SBI. “The thousands of endpoints across multiple branches can be as diverse as a simple straight forward endpoint to a complex endpoint handling apps. We cannot be at any time not less than fully careful about selection of our partner selection,” he says.

SBI is a long standing customer for Trend Micro for over five years. “Five years ago we had done the initial deployment within record time of six months. The main pain area then was the large number of branch offices and the time lost in updating of signature AV patent file as there was little or slow connectivity of remote branches,” recalls Jain.

The selection process of a tech company comes from the ability and use case experiences of our potential partner in handling complexity and handling at scale as per Mahapatra at SBI. “Secondly what is the bandwidth of quality manpower I have and what is the pedigree they have. From all accounts, Trend Micro came up well and that’s why we selected them as an endpoint security vendor,” he adds.

“In the last ten years the focus by hackers is compromising the company’s digital assets. Hackers target where such assets are more available and importantly have financial interest. The data across finance industry, government and telecom have incredible financial value for hackers,” said Mahendra Negi, Group CFO, Trend Micro.

SBI in terms of number of endpoints and branch offices is a colossal customer for Trend Micro. The banking and financial industry is a key vertical for us some of the biggest deals in past few months across the globe and India have been in that segment as per Negi.

Working with a global security vendor is the key as their solutions deployed across various customer sets of small to big size enterprises means that they know the threat landscape much better than specialist vendors.

“We have another customer in China which has more endpoints than the present number at SBI.

SBI in terms of sheer diversity and the number of branches is in a different league compared to the customer set globally and we hope to extend our comprehensive portfolio as a single vendor beyond endpoint solutions across its IT infra.

SBI is a happy customer not only in terms of the basic security parameters of performance and detection but the regular updates across 26000 branches through our cloud architecture including India’s remote places with thin connectivity, says Jain.

Organizations in the past had security solutions from multiple vendors but today the response time is too short and completes of attacks is also high as per Negi.

“If you don’t have full visibility, the security posture can fall flat. Also working with a global security vendor is the key as their solutions deployed across various customer sets of small to big size enterprises means that they know the threat landscape much better than specialist vendors as per him.

Into the Future

It is a historic moment as a joint team of Trend Micro and SBI could deploy endpoint security solutions given the magnitude of SBI and thus delivering the update ratio of 99% across 26000 branches, says Jain.

The deployment was finished majority of development in the first year across endpoints which more than 95% are desktops and laptops across their branches

The next plan is to include the subsidiary companies of SBI under this endpoint umbrella.

“The adoption of mobility is increasing in the corporate and we are working on providing mobility solutions for mobile endpoints to SBI in future, says Jain.

Trend Micro is also in the process of securing over 28000 servers across SBI offices. Trend Micro Deep Security solution will be protecting and securing the servers at SBI– a part of branch and server consolidation project. We are also protecting their mail servers for internal mail usage, said Jain.

From global perspective, SBI today is half way through the deployment as there are three parts: endpoint, usage of data strength and the part of network that connects them as per Negi. We have comprehensive security solutions cross all three areas as we hope we can extend the coverage and for the customers it is more better and comprehensive security, says Negi at Trend Micro.

The integration of security tools is a top priority for SBI. “Security over period of time has been approached by major players in a fragmented manner. People have bought tools and solutions with the deployment through different layers. And the banking services are delivered through web layer, service oriented layer, application programming level in fragmented manner," says CIO Mrutyunjay Mahapatra at SBI.

"My aim in SBI is that we should have unification and integration approach. This will require retooling at advanced level," says Mahapatra.